Saturday, November 26, 2016

Since the President-Elect and his family are spending their Thanksgiving holiday at Trump's Florida estate of Mar-a-Lago, I thought I'd repost a
photo essay from my blog of April 4, 2011 to give an inside view of just
how over-the-top the place is, not to mention re-showing the portrait
found inside that shows The Donald just as he imagines himself to be.

Palm Beach, I’ve noticed, is like Disney World for grown-ups—everything is bigger, better, cleaner, fancier (and more expensive) than in the real world.

The
latest example came yesterday (Sunday) when we were invited to lunch at
the Mar-a-Logo Club by a friend who is a member. (The cost, I’m told, is $150,000 initiation fee and $75,000 each year after that.)

I didn’t even know that Donald Trump
had turned his palatial (think Versailles) private home into a private
club in April of 1995. His presence is still everywhere—from the plaque
at the door to the name and crest on the paper hand towels (I stole
one) in the gold-encrusted bathrooms and on the welcome mat, to a
portrait that is apparently meant to portray The Donald at a younger age
in sports clothes.

The Mar-a-Lago Estate was built to the specifications of Marjorie Merriweather Post
(then Mrs. E. F. Hutton)and completed in 1927. (The name is Latin for
“Sea-to-Lake”—it has water views both front and back.) Three boatloads
of Dorian stone were brought from Genoa, Italy.
There were 114 rooms in the original villa. According to a “short
history” of the place, “It was Mrs. Post’s plan to bring together many
Old -World Features of the Spanish, Venetian and Portuguese styles.”

In
January of 1969 the estate was named a “National Historic Site”. After
Mrs. Post died in 1973, she left the place to the federal government
for use as a diplomatic/presidential retreat. It was pretty costly to
maintain--so in 1985, it was sold to Donald Trump who used it as a
private residence for ten years (and married his third wife, Melania,
there in 2005). Even his first wife, Ivana, used it for her ill-starred
wedding to an Italian 24 years her junior in 2008.

In April of 1995, it became the Mar-a-Lago Club.

According
to the “brief history” available at the desk, Trump has “since built a
magnificent swimming pool, an award-winning beauty salon, a world-class
spa, one grass and five red-clay championship tennis courts and a
remarkable croquet court.…Completed in 2005 is the all-new Donald J.
Trump Grand Ballroom—the interior is in a Louis XIV gold and crystal finish that is one of the finest spaces of its kind in the country.”

We joined our friends for lunch in the outdoor patio (where I ordered lobster quesadillas) and they told us that Jennifer Hudson was on the premises, resting after her recent performance on American Idol, and Joan Rivers had just checked out.

With
the Trump name plastered everywhere, it sort of seemed natural that The
Donald himself breezed in as we were eating. Wearing a baseball hat and
casual clothes, he greeted the several tables of diners, making sure
everyone was happy. I asked about the décor, having been stymied by the
mix of Spanish tiles and the Arabic-looking plasterwork. Was
it Moroccan? I asked and he agreed—Moroccan it was! (At that point
neither he nor I had read in the “brief history” that it’s actually
“Spanish, Venetian, and Portuguese” all mixed together into a decadent ,
dazzling, over-the-top mish-mash that would send Mad King Ludwig
into a jealous funk. There popped into my memory a French phrase which
doesn’t really have an English equivalent. It was all a bit “de trop.”)

Later
in the afternoon we saw Trump depart, along with Melania and her
parents, their young son and an older girl who was evidently Tiffany,
the daughter he had with second wife Marla Maples.

Throughout
the estate, which we explored post-lunch, poking into rooms and peeking
behind doors, we kept encountering antique tiles with a Latin motto:
“Plus Ultra”, which translates as “Beyond the Ultimate.” This is
Mar-a-Lago’s slogan. As we left, past the gilded cupids and the large
brass lions at the gate , I was reminded of another ancient classical
slogan carved into the Temple of Apollo at Delphi: “Midhen Agan”—“Nothing in excess”.

Monday, November 21, 2016

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It's time to
post my yearly essay about Thanksgiving shortcuts from a lazy cook (me). It
changes slightly every year as I find more ways to cut down my holiday hysteria
with even more shortcuts. For example, this year I got our turkey from
Trader Joe's because it 's already brined as well as "all natural, no
antibiotics, fresh" and the turkeys "roam free...and
they're fed an all vegetarian diet." And they're very reasonably
priced!

I'm starting my annual
baking tonight before the kids and grandkids arrive on Wednesday and on
Thursday we'll sit down to a Thanksgiving table set for 12, including
five-year-old granddaughter Amalia and 18-month-old grandson Nicolas.
Last year Amalia made me promise that we'd bake an "orange pie"
together, which I took to mean a pumpkin pie, and she decorated the top with a
ring of candy corn left over from Halloween. The pies pictured above are
from a Thanksgiving several years ago, in the days when I would make three pies
and a pumpkin roll every year. Every Thanksgiving I'd try
a different apple pie recipe in the hopes of finding the prize-winning pie that
will bring tears (of joy, not sorrow) to my family’s eyes.
This year I'm only baking the Chocolate Kahlua pie (at right above) which
has become a tradition that the family insists upon. I'm ordering a pecan
pie and an "Apple Croquante" from a wonderful bakery that
popped up next to my hairdresser's in Westborough, MA. It's called "Yummy Mummy Bakery" and has addictively delicious brownies all
year round. By popular demand, I'm substituting for the old faithful
pumpkin pie (which nobody ever finished) some incredibly delicious Melt-In-Your-Mouth Pumpkin Cookies which I made last Christmas and then
had to make again after Christmas.

For 46 years I’ve been
streamlining Thanksgiving cooking because I’m lazy, and my Greek
relatives still don’t realize that my special cornbread stuffing comes out of a
package (slightly doctored up.) They spend days making their Greek
stuffing, which includes chestnuts, hamburger and a lot of other good things.
Amalia's honorary Grandma, "Yiayia" Eleni Nikolaides, will be
making it for our table this year. Of course everyone prefers the Greek
stuffing, but I still make my cornbread stuffing, because it’s
“tradition.” Another tradition is everyone competing for the honor
of wearing the Turkey hat, which Nicos won last year. He's next to
"Yiayia" Eleni Nikolaides.

Amalia
wore her turkey dress to the Thanksgiving show at her school last year

Nowadays magazines
and ads on TV make much of the young wife and mother terrified by the
complexities of roasting a turkey and serving Thanksgiving dinner to a crowd. I
think the whole thing has been vastly over-complicated by the media. So I’m
going to share my sneaky shortcuts for a super-easy Thanksgiving.The Turkey—don’t
stuff it! A
turkey roasted with the stuffing inside takes much longer and then you have all
those risks of food poisoning if you leave the turkey and stuffing
unrefrigerated long after taking it out of the oven. Stuffing baked in the
turkey comes out soggy. I prepare my stuffing on top of the stove.The directions
are on the back of the Pepperidge Farm Corn Bread Stuffing package—Melt 6 TBSP
butter in a saucepan, add a cup of chopped celery and a cup of chopped onions,
cook for 3 minutes. (Then I throw in sliced mushrooms and maybe this year
chopped apples and cook some more. You could also add chopped chestnuts or
pecans and crumbled bacon or sausage.) When everything is softened, you
throw in 2 1/2 cups water or broth and add the stuffing mix, stir and
you’re all done.

As for the turkey—I always get a fresh turkey, even
though it costs more, so as not to have to defrost it for days and then find it
still frozen on Thanksgiving morn. Last year I got mine from a nearby
Wegman's and bought the organic kind, which cost five times as much as the
non-organic kind, but I justified the expense to myself and a sticker-shocked
husband by saying the turkey was free range, had a happy childhood, and was
never injected with hormones. (This year I got the already brined free-range
turkey described above from Trader Joe's.) When I put it in the oven, I'll cut
an onion and a couple oranges in half and put them in the cavity first.
For the last 15 minutes I'll baste it with an Apple-cider glaze from an
old Martha Stewart Living. (Do you remember the Thanksgiving when
Martha recommended deep-frying your turkey and many faithful readers risked
life and limb trying? This year she recommends starting the turkey
upside-down, nestled on slices of bread on a v-shaped rack for 45 minutes, but
I'm certain that, when it came time to turn it over, I'd drop it. So I'll stick
with a turkey cooking breast-side up, but with an aluminum foil tent on
it after it's nicely browned. Tradition! (Don’t forget, the turkey needs
to sit for a half hour to soak up the juices. But without stuffing, it cooks
a lot faster, so I won't have to get up before sunrise to start it.)

Green Bean Casserole and
Candied Sweet Potatoes with Marshmallows: I don’t make them. I came to realize that nobody
eats them. What I do make is: Parmesan Potato Casserole which is mashed
potatoes in a casserole dish with a lot of butter and cheese, cream and eggs
stirred in and then you bake it with some cheese and parsley on top. I cook
Wild Rice mix straight out of the Uncle Ben box. Artichoke hearts alla Polita
with peas and dill. Corn and red pepper casserole. Stuffed mushrooms as
an appetizer.2016 Update: Daughter Eleni has been doing
research for a magazine article on foods that are likeliest to improve health
and increase longevity, and it seems that sweet potatoes are one of the
best. Who knew? So this year, at her suggestion, I'm going to make Coconut-Mashed Sweet Potatoes from the Blue Zones site. Gravy—open a
can. I’ve
tried about a million “No-fail turkey gravy” recipes over the years and I
manage to fail every time. What I do now is open a couple cans of store-bought
turkey gravy, chop up some of the neck and liver of the turkey (which have
cooked in the roasting pan alongside the turkey), add a nice splash of some
liquor—like sherry—or you can throw in some of the pan juices. Who’s going to
know that it came out of a can? (Update--this year I'm using Trader Joe's
Turkey Gravy which comes in a small carton, not a can.)Orange-cranberry relish—you can make this up to a month ahead. Everybody
loves it and it makes even the driest turkey taste better. Pick over and grind
in the blender a one pound bag of cranberries. Grind up a couple oranges—pulp
and rind. Mix together with two cups sugar or more. Chill in the
refrigerator--the longer it sits the better it tastes. I always make a double
recipe.
When the kids were small I would have them cut with scissors a jagged edge
around hollowed-out orange halves to make little baskets to hold the cranberry
relish—I’d put the baskets surrounding the turkey. Nowadays I surround the
turkey on its platter with bunches of green and purple grapes.Place cards and
menus—Making the
place cards or favors is a great way to keep children busy and out of your hair.
I used to have mine make favors/place cards that were turkeys fashioned out of
(store bought) popcorn balls with a ladyfinger for the head and neck, three
toothpick legs to stand, red or orange cellophane tied around the popcorn ball
and gathered for a tail.—The three-legged turkey was then stuck in a large flat
cookie, where the name would be written using those cake-decorating
tubes. Last year granddaughter Amalia made our place cards --colorful
paper turkeys with googly eyes from a kit I bought at a Paper Store in
Manhattan. Stores like Michael's now offer place mats to color and
place-card kits to assemble.... perfect for keeping the little darlings busy
through the long Thanksgiving meal.

Here's our table last
year. Papou Nick, as the patriarch,always sits at the head of the table
to carve the turkey.

The centerpiece is
always the same—I
have a basket shaped like a cornucopia, filled with various fruits, nuts and
some fall flowers that have survived in the garden. Couldn’t be easier. Candles
in candle holders. Also I've acquired a bunch of rubber turkey finger
puppets which Amalia has already commandeered. And yes, everyone
has to tell what they're thankful for. I always print out on the computer
a small decorative menu for each plate so people know what they’re eating. What
they won’t know is how easy it was, unless you tell them.

Friday, November 18, 2016

Last Sunday, Nick and I were in New York when he got word
that he was invitedto attend the state dinner in President
Obama’s honor to be given by the Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos in the
Presidential Palace in Athens on Tuesday night.

So we drove back to Massachusetts while Nick scrambled on
the phone to find a flight out of Boston that would get him to Greece in time
for Tuesday.(There are no direct
flights to Athens at this time of year.) He eventually flew on Monday afternoon
on Lufthansa to Frankfurt and then to Athens, arriving midday on Tuesday. I
really wanted to go too, but the Embassy told him no spouses were coming, not even
Michelle Obama.

Nick has sent me photos of the event, which he thoroughly
enjoyed.Young women in native costume welcomed
the 120 guests entering the grand dining room.They were seated at long tables arranged like three sides of a rectangle,
or the Greek letter pi. Obama sat in the center of the head table, at the right
of Greek President Pavlopoulos and on Obama’s right was Greek Prime Minister
Alexis Tsipras.

I was amused to see that Tsipras, who as a Marxist and leader
of the leftist Syriza party made a point throughout his campaign of never
wearing a tie, appeared throughout the state dinner and other events honoring
Obama, always tie-less in an open-necked white shirt.I was also amused that the Prime Minister, an
avowed atheist, was seated next to the Archbishop of Athens. I wonder what they
talked about.

While Prime Minister Tsipras speaks halting English, Greek
President Pavlopoulos knows it well, but both made their public remarks in
Greek and then paused for an English translation.Watching the event on Greek TV, I heard Obama
whisper to President Pavlopoulos, “Is this your house?Do you live here?” and Pavlopoulos
answered, “No, I have a home over by the Hilton.”

The menu, printed in two languages, featured “Shrimps with
citrus fruits”, “rice with vegetables and herbs”, “baked grouper with greens,
garnished with potatoes and cherry tomatoes”, “chestnut dessert”, ”seasonal
fruit, two kinds of wines and coffee.

President Obama began his remarks with “kalispera” (good
evening) and lauded Greece for the country’s hospitality, humanity and its
contributions to the world as the source of democracy.After the Greek president and prime minister
spoke,the children’s choir of the Greek
National Opera sang four songs, both John Lennon’s “Imagine” and Simon and
Garfunkel’s “Sounds of Silence” and two
popular Greek songs by Theodorakis and Hadjidakis.Afterward, Obama enthusiastically mixed with
the children and thanked them for their performance.

Sadly I have no photo of Nick talking to Obama.At U.S. State dinners, there is usually a
photographer who takes your photo as you are introduced to the President in a
reception line, but at the Greek state dinner, Obama shook hands with the
guests as they filed out of the dining room.

Nick had a brief conversation with Obama which delighted
them both—Nick said, paraphrasing a famous statement made by Saint Paul right
before his martyrdom: “Mr. President, you have fought the good fight, you have
finished the race, you have kept the faith.History will not slight you.”Obama replied, “Thank you. That means a lot to me.”Then he took a few steps, turned back smiling
and said, “Letter to Timothy right?” (He was right, it’s from 2nd Timothy 4:7.Proof that our President knows his Bible and
was not dozing during Sunday school.)

The next day, Wednesday, Obama visited the Acropolis Museum
and saw the Parthenon for the first time.Then he spoke to a large group of invitees at the new Stavros Niarchos
Cultural Center.Nick was there.

I asked Nick, when it was all over, if he felt Obama’s visit
to Greece had been a success. (It was covered live for three days on Greek TV,
which I watched sporadically.) The New
York Times said last Tuesday that Trump’s victory had rattled Greece
because “Obama had been supportive of Greece’s efforts to get its finances in
order, and of Europe’s bid to keep Greece stable.Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras hoped that Mr.
Obama, who travels to Berlin on Thursday, might even persuade the German
chancellor, Angela Merkel, to offer Greece some debt relief by the end of the year.”

In answer to my question Nick said, “I think it was
important to both the visitor and the visited. Obama, as he finishes his
presidency, wanted to go to the fountainhead of the values he pursued as
President. And that of course is Greece, where democracy and individual rights
and equal justice under law were developed.And the Greeks needed somebody to show compassion for their plight in
view of the hard stand their fellow Europeans, especially the Germans, are
taking. I think both of those goals were fulfilled very successfully. Obama was
really in top form.”

Saturday, November 5, 2016

Since it is the season of the Days of the Dead, I decided to re-post one of my very first blog posts, published on November 18, 2008, about a painting I did inspired by some of my visits to Mexico. (I'm hoping to make another visit to Oaxaca in February.)

My friend, photographer and teacher Mari
Seder, first introduced me to Mexico, its incredible colors and
fascinating folk and religious art when I visited her in Oaxaca many
years ago.

Several years ago I traveled with her to the
isolated Church of the Virgin of Juquila on the mountainous road from
Oaxaca to Puerto Escandido. Pilgrims come here by foot from all over
Mexico to ask for a miracle from this tiny, dark-skinned figure of the
Virgin who is housed in a massive church.

The pilgrims
walk for days, sleeping in village squares, fed by pious Mexicans,
until they reach Juquila. They often approach the saint on their knees.
The tiny figure (who is considered Indian because of her dark skin)
has a white train which stretches out of the church and far into the
distance. Pilgrims leave on the train gifts and hand-made wooden
crosses either specifying the favor they need or thanking her for favors
received. My photo at right below shows two Indian women on their knees
approaching the Virgin, one with a blond baby on her back.

Three years ago on March 21 my daughter and I were on a tour led by cooking guru Susanna Trilling (http://seasonsofmyheart.com/).
We were at El Tajin – a pre-Columbian archeological site in Veracruz,
composed of multiple pyramids. It was the Spring Equinox and hundreds
of Mexicans, all dressed in white, came there to be cleansed by the Sun
God with the aid of cueranderos (healers).

On
the way into the pyramids, among the many objects on display on the
road outside, I noticed the skeletal lady dressed as a Spanish Senorita.
I had never seen anything like her … she was like the many Guadalupe
virgins seen everywhere, but she was Death. So I took her photo, but no
one could tell me exactly what she was for. They told me she was Santa
Meurte and I could see she was available for some kind of religious
ceremony (for a price) but I couldn’t get any other kind of
information. Everyone seemed reluctant to talk about her.

Last
year in February in Oaxaca I attended a class sponsored by the
Worcester Art Museum called “Expanding Your Vision -- Painting and
Photography in the Magical World of Oaxaca, Mexico”. It was taught by
my friend Mari Seder and Oaxacan artist Humberto Batista. (Nowadays they still offer classes in Oaxaca, but they're doing it on their own: http://www.artworkshopsinoaxaca.com/) Humberto strongly encouraged the students to think outside the box and to paint something unlike their usual style.

At
his urging (although I am VERY literal – usually painting just what I
see) I incorporated the figure of Santa Meurte from El Tajin into my
painting of the interior of the Church of Juquila. The result is the
painting above.

I was surprised and excited when I recently picked up the New Yorker
dated Nov. 10 and found an article by Alma Guillermoprieto called
“Days of the Dead, The new narcocultura.” She wrote about the narcotics
trafficking that is causing such bloodshed in Mexico and she
investigated the role of “The Holy Death” – especially as she is
celebrated in a mass every day in a troubled neighborhood of Mexico City
called Tepito where the drug dealers and addicts collect.

The
author suggested that there are two thousand shrines in Mexico to Santa
Meurte and that she is the saint of drug traffickers (although the
woman who established the large shrine in Tepito denies that it is only
for drug traffickers.)

When I painted the watercolor
at top, showing a woman crawling toward the Virgin of Juquila , I
imagined that she was going to ask the Virgin to heal her baby and was
encountering Santa Muerte blocking her way to salvation. If it’s true
that Holy Death is the saint of narcotics dealers, that adds another
dimension to the painting. Perhaps the baby’s health and safety are
threatened by some version of the narcocultura (maybe not now but when he grows up.)

The
thought gave me a shudder, appropriately enough at this season which
celebrates the Days of the Dead. And it adds a layer of unexpected
meaning to the painting

A Rolling Crone

After 40 years as a journalist, I turned 60 and decided to return to my first love--painting. I’ve exhibited watercolors and photographs in Massachusetts and have a slide show of paintings below. My photo book “The Secret Life of Greek Cats” can be purchased by clicking on the cover below.
I collect way too many things, but my great passion is antique photographs, from the earliest—daguerreotypes (circa 1840) up to 1900 (cabinet cards, tintypes.) I approach each one as a mystery to solve, and in unlocking their secrets have met some fascinating historic figures. For some of the stories, check the list of “The Story Behind the Photograph”.
My husband Nick and I live in Grafton, MA and recently celebrated our 41st anniversary. We have 3 children, now amazing adults. And on Aug. 26, 2011, we greeted our first grandchild, Amalía-- world’s cutest baby. But this blog isn’t about grandparenting (although photos of the grandkid sneak in). As it says up top, it’s about travel, art, photography and life after sixty. And crone power.